By Jonathan Falcone on December 16, 2010

Whether a genuine follow-up to Hurley or an “old label flogs unreleased songs” exercise, Death to False Metal has a lovely disparity. The songs are plucked from the course of the band’s history, which imposes a strange coherence. It feels (not sounds) most like Pinkerton—lo-fi, sludgy and angry.

Death to False Metal fails when it huffs, but wins with songs like “Trampoline” and “Losing My Mind,” where chords sit sadly under Cuomo’s awesome melodies, which somehow make even the most fuzzed guitar lines sound soft and feminine. And these moments have always connected well with everyone’s inner love-struck geek (see: “Only in Dreams” and “The Angel and the One”). “Blowin’ My Stack” and “I’m a Robot” are basically the same song (one in rock mode, the latter in piano), the cover of Toni Braxton’s “Un-Break My Heart” is inspired and the fan collaboration “Turning Up the Radio” is—surprise!—about listening to music.

Ultimately, this collection is a series of album nearly-rans. This shouldn’t undermine the songs, but it should reiterate how strong Weezer’s records actually are (for the large part). The other thing it does, but really doesn’t need to, is show that while sometimes the band’s eccentricities are very funny, unfortunately they’re also musically poor.